If you need to reinstall Windows 11, you’re most likely going to need to do a hell of a lot of post-install work to make Windows 11 somewhat manageable. There’s countless tools to make this process a little bit easier, and one of them, Flyoobe, just got a major update to aid in removing all the “AI” nonsense Microsoft is forcing down the throats of its users.
Starting off with version 1.7, people who hate the way Microsoft has been stuffing AI features into Windows 11 will be pleased to know that there is an OOBE view that allows you to discover and disable all AI and Copilot features after the installation of the OS. Moreover, the OOBE view that handles bloat removal has been enhanced too, and now allows presets ranging from Minimal to Full, along with the ability to load custom presets from GitHub.
↫ Usama Jawad at Neowin
If Microsoft actually cared about the users of its Windows operating system, they would simply include an advanced options view during installation, in which you could customise your installation. Instead, users have to rely on what are essentially hacks to get to a point where their operating system installation can serve their needs, which is batshit insane to me.
I’m glad projects like Flyoobe exists, but they shouldn’t have to.
The same can be said about the X Window System and Wayland. If it’s technically feasible, why not give users a choice?
You mean that X and Wayland are to bloated by default and there is no deafult option of getting clean systems? I think that it depend from distro.
And if you mean choose between X and Wayland… There are people and money needed to keep both going. I`m sure you can get this.
I suppose the difference here is simply that Linux will provide the console based tools and technical documentation to enable the motivated user to investigate, learn and solve their own problems or make their own customisations, in many if not most cases it is the only possible way forward under Linux.
Of course for MS, Apple and some Android based OS that is not feasible, they have to make things work and deliver functionality for many users who in relative technical capability can barely find the power button.
Regarding bloat, there are just as many bloated Linux distros as there is bloat for any commercial OS. The problem is just moved for the novice end user from debloating the one and only option, to making the right choice from thousands of distro choices. Otherwise, you end up in exactly the same space…..
How do you get a million different answers to a single question, ask a Linux conference which distro to use!
Hmm it looks like a tool that you have to use pre installation.
Anything that can fix an already installed Win 11?
At last look, disabling Copilot was a matter of setting a registry key.
Per user:
reg add HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot /v TurnOffWindowsCopilot /t reg_dword /d 1
Still worked at last check, but that was some months ago.
For all users on local machine:
reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot /v TurnOffWindowsCopilot /t reg_dword /d 1
Good question if the HKLM version of the key exists at this time, or ever existed. Different sources of documentation disagree.
Betting this is not (or soon will not be) sufficient now that we’re starting to see deep application integration.
While whoever reads OSNews is capable of that, do we even know all places where we need to change the registry? And it’s not only Copilot, it’s also Recall. And whatever else I don’t know about.
Some tool that centralizes all these changes for you would be nice. Especially for non engineers / power users.
torp,
+1 for having a tool
It’s not that we can’t use the registry, but that it’s a mess even for power users.
Tweaking tools are useful for a lot of things.
https://winaerotweaker.com/
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-5-for-windows-11
It would be logical for these tools to have a setting for copilot, but their respective websites don’t list it. Maybe the authors would add it?